How to add a location or report a problem in iOS 6 Maps

With iOS 6 Apple has rebuilt the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad Maps app from the ground-up. They've also switched away from exclusively using Google data to using data from TomTom and others. However, like any new endeavor there will be problems, frustrations, and straight up errors and omissions that need to be fixed. In iOS 6 Maps, Apple has provided a way to do just that.

How to report a problem with iOS 6 Maps

Tap the type of problem you want to report: Search results are incorrect, street or other label is incorrect, location is missing, problem with directions, problem with satellite image, or if none of those fit, my problem isn't listed.

Apple will receive your suggested location, and if it meets their criteria, add it to the data base.

Don't forget, iOS 6 Maps ties into Yelp, so you can also add your location or business to Yelp, and that will give Apple access to that data as well.

Why reporting problems matters

This is basic crowd-sourcing at work. With hundreds of millions of iOS users hammering at the new Maps app, Apple and their partners will have a tremendous opportunity to iterate and improve quickly. And they'll need to.

I just noticed you can report specific pins too. For instance I searched walgreen's and a pin dropped in the middle of my neighborhood. I opened the pin and was able to report that the location doesn't exist.

I have tried generic searches such as "fast food" and "hospital" thus far with very poor results. Fast Food only came up with one in my area, and there are at least 6 places within walking distance. Hospital came back with three pet hospitals, instead of the large hospitals in my city. If you search on the specific name, they come up just fine. I have reported both (which is awesome), but it looks like Apple needs to work on updating their generic term searching.

Another enhancement I would like to see added is the option to search on generic categories, such as Restaurants, Entertainment, etc. Google Local, Yelp! and even my Garmin GPS have these generic categories pre-setup to pick from.

I just did a generic search for hospitals and it pulled up all major hospitals in my search area. Also did a search for fast food and got the 6 places in the immediate area of my office.

I think this is turning out to be a case by case issue because I saw an article today stating that when searching for a "popular fast food chain" that was 1 mile away from the person searching, maps provided a location 1100 miles away in another state. When I did a search for McDonalds, I was presented with the McDonalds down the street from my office.

I had it panned out over multiple cities, about 5. The center point was my offices city which has over 200k pop. Cities surrounding are probably around 20k-100k. That was for the "Hospitals" search. McDonalds search was specifically centered only a few blocks from my office, where it pulled up the Mickey D's right down the street. I expanded further after posting my reply and it brought up the same McD and the McD "museum".

Google's maps benefits significantly from search. If you have a business, you are wise to create a google place that shows up in location context results from a google search. That means actual entities are adding places via a formal process to google maps, but doing it because of search.

Having users as the ground truth arbiters for map places is a precarious situation. How does Apple verify, esp. if there is conflicting information about a specific location?

Google hasn't just done maps longer, they have specific advantages that I doubt Apple can ever match. Apple was unwise, in my opinion, to drop google map data (assuming that's how it went down). The war between Apple and Google is not my war. I am invested in services and products from both, like many, many people. I hope I am wrong about Apple and their maps data (the application is the least important aspect). In the meantime, the minute Google releases Maps for iOS, that's where I'm going.

Google hasn't just done maps longer, they have specific advantages that I doubt Apple can ever match. Apple was unwise, in my opinion, to drop google map data (assuming that's how it went down). The war between Apple and Google is not my war. I am invested in services and products from both, like many, many people. I hope I am wrong about Apple and their maps data (the application is the least important aspect). In the meantime, the minute Google releases Maps for iOS, that's where I'm going.

Where is the Google Maps app? Traffic on iOS6 sucks! Only little Red dashes that you can't see at a glance while driving. What about Yellow, that traffic is moving just slow. My only big issue with iOS6 is Map Traffic. In Dallas it is an issue. Before I go anywhere I look at traffic. I showed the new maps to my wife and she threatened me if I upgrade her to iOS6!

Starting tomorrow (although I'm sure it's already started with iOS 6 rolling out on iphone 4S/4/3GS, iPad 2/3, iPod touch), Apple will get FLOODED with people filling in problem reports on the new maps app....

I've been using it since beta 1 on iOS 6, but it's just not quite ready for prime time. I live in the sticks, and the satellite image quality is horrendous! Not so mention LARGE bodies of water not even being on the map!!!

I have a bad feeling this is going to go REALLY bad for Apple... They should have sucked it up with Google Maps for a little while longer...

I guess it depends on where you live. When I look at my neighborhood on Google, massive building complexes that were built a couple years ago are still fields. On Apple's new Maps, it looks like maybe 6 months ago max.

Apple must be already starting to update things... as the quality of the satellite images in my area has now improved (since even a few days ago) like 10 fold!!! Super high res now... and some areas not too far away (but still far from metro areas) have actual usable 3D maps for some terrain features (in this case, a hilly area for mountain biking)... There's hope yet!

If Apple needs us to pitch and help improve the map database, they really should have made it easier to find that "report a problem" link. From the pictures it looks like its buried in the background, and it barely looks tappable. Will anyone even notice it?

Already made a report. Tom Tom maps has been wrong next to my old home in Des Moines showing a road that was torn out at least 12 years ago. Apple maps has the same error. Hope they get it fixed and I'll be reporting more errors.

Can you do this on Google maps? They can't find my current address even though the street has been here for years.

The question is though... how many people have actually used it? I've used Google Maps for years and didn't know about it. The iPhone (and tons of iOS devices) are going to quickly make this known through hundreds of millions of iOS map checkers around the globe.

I wonder if this is a big benefit for Tom Tom? Most GPS units (all?) wouldn't have a good way to provide correction feedback, so lots of things would go uncorrected. With all these mobile devices, it is likely corrections will come in quite quickly. If they have a good way of verifying and implementing the corrections, they could blow past Google quite quickly (in accuracy).

I'm as big a fan of crowdsourced data as I am of open source software (hint: very big fan of both), but "blowing by Google" seems a tad optimistic. In fact, what you describe is already being done by Google -- those Street View cars do more than take pictures; they are providing continuous route, gps, and street information back at the same time. A voluntary crowdsourced approach *might* surpass that someday, but it seems unlikely. You might find interesting last week's piece in the Atlantic talking about how Google takes in data (both crowdsourced, purchased, and automatically gathered) to construct its maps.

Yes, and all the crowdsourced changes will need to be vetted in house, it's not like they're going to take randomuserx's feedback without it being checked first. It's going to be very slow. Just wait, when ios7 comes out, we'll hear that the new OS has over 200 changes to the map data!

i don't disagree but even google does allow you to change and edit map addresses and pin yourself. I've done that. i took a google map address that had it's pin essentially in the middle of a street and edited it and was able to move the pin correctly to the correct building on the correct street. And it updated automatically.

You know what assholes. When you buy something you haven't done any research on it is not apple to blame but you assholes. So stop nagging about it and shut up. I am sick and tired of idiots who don't do their homework. Jerks , Just go buy another phone and see if apple will get it strait or not, As long as jerks like U exist there will always be an Apple a Microsoft or whatever, Jerks.

Hey ya'll. What can I do if yelp doesn't work in my country (Venezuela, Northern South America)? I've been trying reporting problems and adding locations but does anyone know how long will Apple take to change the information I just reported? Is it going to be as fast as it will be in the US and The U.K. for example? I've read that some changes in those two countries are even done overnight.

I reported our business location/address as incorrect on day 1 of the IOS6 launch. It's still not fixed, despite following the guide on this page. We are being shown some 3 miles (5 Km) away from where we should be with an address of the local police station. We do live in New Zealand so I guess that's all OK.

Ditto with us Martin. Every week I send in error reports about my business on Apple maps. Nada.

An apology doesn't cut it with the way this thing works. It's broken and should not be used. It should have been deleted and Google should have been stuck back up there while they went back to the drawing board. .

My business, Motostrano has been at the same location for 7 years. Apple either purchased or obtained free of charge some very old GEO data when they made their maps product and they have us located in the next town over, a location we have never had. The address however showed up in some old mapping application like Vicinity or some garbage from 9 years ago, which is how I know they are using this garbage data. Imagine, using data on a mapping tool from Apple that's over 5 years old. What?

But that's not the main problem with this crappy application, which they know every one uses and which businesses now rely on for successfully knowing that their customers can navigate to their places of business. I'd be happy as pie if my address was wrong, as long as I could claim my location and edit it whenever I like, when I move, or when I change information. What are they doing with these reports? Is some poor fool sitting at a desk manually reading the error reports and updating the GEO data? Virtually every online business directory lets you claim and edit your data. Typically, Apple is hording it's outdated, erroneous information.

Our business address details were fixed about a week or so back, but our "pin" still shows the wrong location on the map despite flagging it when I first reported the problem with our business details, and a dozen times since!!

A friend asked me about my iPad the other day. I showed them most things, they were impressed. I then showed them the maps, especially our business location, then we tried to find their business, it wasn't even on there. They are buying an Android, says it all really.

I've been sending map corrections to Apple Map for some time now, but they aren't corrected yet. How long does it take them to correct them?.
Do they let you know when they do? or if they decide that our corrections are wrong and they won't apply them?

It took around 2.5 months for our address to be corrected, but our pin position is still wrong and the same as it was when first reported. Had no indication anything had been corrected, you just have to keep checking.

I hate to burst your bubble, but I strongly suspect any problems you report go straight to /dev/null.

Both Google and Apple Maps had my home street labelled incorrectly - I reported this to both on the same day, and while Google fixed it within 7 days (keeping me up to date with the progress of my report via email all the way) I see no fix in Apple Maps 5 months later. The street name data is apparently provided by TomTom. I have a TomTom device and account, so I reported the same problem to them (again, around 5 months ago), and it was fixed in their next map update (about 2 months later). Still the Apple Maps app has it wrong, which means when I ask Siri to navigate to my home address (stored in my Contacts app correctly), it directs me to a street in a town about 50 miles away.

As far as I can tell, despite Apple's promise, there has been absolutely no improvement to the Maps app since it was launched.

Our pin position is still not correct. Our address is now shown correctly as reported before, but our pin position has not charged to match, despite regular reports of the problem. Apple has really shot themselves in the foot as far as I am concerned, but the sad part is that Apple users who don't know about the maps problems, and this is probably the vast majority, are potentially being led up the garden path as you might say.

I've added locations to apple maps using an Ipad with iOS 7, and after adding the locations I don't see anything, not even a confirmation message with something like "Your info has been sent" or anything like that.

Should I be logged in to an apple account while adding locations to Apple Maps?